Future of the anti-Trump GOP voters

[Person Man]

Whatever happened to Obama Republicans or Bush Democrats?

[Brother Jonathan]

I tried to write out a lengthy response to this, detailing what I saw as the various anti-Trump factions in the GOP, but I think that is sort of an exercise in futility at this point. Generally, voters who have left the GOP during the Trump era had been drifting from the party for some time anyway (for many and varied reasons) and Trump was really just the last straw. Their are so many reasons that Republican voters have objected to Trump, and the degree to which it has driven them away from the party and reasons for the divide both dictate what response they will have when Trump is no longer leading the ticket. Some don't think Trump is a real conservative, others think he is too conservatives, some think he is just unpatriotic or too divisive. Some just think he himself is too aberrant, but that Trumpism itself isn't all that objectionable. Some of his critics see him as a betrayal of the the Tea Party/Freedom Caucus movement, others see him as the fulfillment of that movement. It's a group with broad disagreements, but it's ultimately a small group in the grand scheme of things.

I think more than anything, though, it is Trump himself that has motivated these Republicans to leave. They are called "Never Trump" Republicans for a reason. To that end, most of these voters would not vote for a Trumpian candidate stylistically regardless of what policies he advocated for, but of course that's not true of all Anti-Trump Republicans. Again, it's a broad and far from homogenous group, and most of the voters we would call anti-Trump have much deeper objections to long term trends in the Republican Party (rhetorical and policy wise) that were largely personified in Donald Trump.  It's a broad but ultimately small group that represents a large number of long standing objections to the Republican Party from all sides of the party. Justin Amash and Bill Kristol were often at odds, and from very different factions of the pre-Trump GOP, but that they can agree that they don't like Donald Trump and his Republican party is emblematic of the divide within anti-Trump Republican circles.

As an anti-Trump GOP voter, I have resigned myself to political homelessness for the next few years at least. I suppose I will return to voting Republican down ballot more regularly, but I don't know if I will vote for a Republican presidential ticket within the next decade or so. I suspect others are in roughly the same boat. But anyway, that's my general impression of it.

[pbrower2a]

Whatever happens they will be conservative. They may win offices in states with weak Democratic Parties by running as Democrats.

[Real Texan Politics]

Unless Jeb! runs again in 2024 (and Nikki Haley runs as well), they'll probably stick with the democrats.

[forsythvoter]

Depends on who runs in 2024 - I could see myself voting for a Haley / Rubio / Sasse / Romney type, not so much a Carlson type. The Hawley type would depend on what their priorities are vs. how Biden performs in office.

[Agonized-Statism]

The Democrats have absorbed the neocons, but they might become swing voters in the 2030s.

[Hope For A New Era]

As I said before...they are realigning to the Democrats. This is what a realignment is.

Liberal Democrats -> Berniecrats
Moderate/conservative Democrats -> Liberals
anti-Trump Republicans -> the new moderate/conservative Democrats

"Labour Dems" -> Trumpists
All other Republicans -> either Trumpist or pretending to be Trumpist to avoid being primaried

[Roronoa D. Law]

I fully expect the Democrats going forward will resemble the GOP's coalition at the turn of the 19th century. A party made up of Freedmen, Progressives, and wealthy WASPs.

Or in the modern sense Minorites, Berniecrats, and Liberal/Moderate Elites bound together by the social desirability of appearing open-minded and charitable. Whether we have a Taft v. Roosevelt style showdown between the more conservative and liberal faction of the party. Only time will tell.

[Person Man]

There's a few here, actually. Why don't you ask them?

[brucejoel99]

I think it'll depend on how the rest of the GOP shifts after this election & - even more importantly - who they put up in 2024: if they (however unlikely) shift to a more moderate course & back somebody like Hogan, then I think the Never-Trumpers would go back & return to the fold, but if they double-down & keep pushing for people like Tom Cotton or Josh Hawley, then the likes of the Lincoln Project will be in no mood to favor the same alt-right politicians that helped enable Trump in the 1st place.

[Canis]

of the ones I know all three are registered republicans and good friends of mine ive had a lot of conversations with them about politics recently to get their view on things
1. McCain-Romney-Johnson basically a libertarian politically used to vote straight R downballot but after Trump got elected in 2018 voted Republican at the state level (except when the republican nominees for statewide office where crazies) and voted Democrat federally Already voted for Biden said he plans on registering as NPA soon depending on how the GOP goes may return but if it continues to be Trumpy will likely continue voting for Democrats
2. McCain-Obama-Clinton Voted downballot republican all her life but after Trump won she voted straight D in the midterms and will vote straight D this year is likely going to register as a Democrat as she feels abandoned by her party
3. McCain-Romney-Johnson voting for Biden this year voted straight GOP in the midterms says will almost certainly remain in the GOP
its interesting to me that the never trump GOP voters I know who voted for Johnson and are going to Biden this year are like the southern democrats who voted for Wallace in 68 and then pretty much went to being straight GOP voters (some of which with the exception of Carter and Clinton) I predict that they will split three ways between becoming Moderate Democrats Independents and trying to stay in the GOP and reform it.

[Agonized-Statism]

I fully expect the Democrats going forward will resemble the GOP's coalition at the turn of the 19th century. A party made up of Freedmen, Progressives, and wealthy WASPs.

Or in the modern sense Minorites, Berniecrats, and Liberal/Moderate Elites bound together by the social desirability of appearing open-minded and charitable. Whether we have a Taft v. Roosevelt style showdown between the more conservative and liberal faction of the party. Only time will tell.

Great analysis! I see a lot of parallels with the Third Party System. The fallout of the Great Recession and the COVID-19 recession, among other failings of Reagan Era policies, are collapsing the current Republican advantage as the Civil War and the Panic of 1893 did for the Democrats then. The Republicans will have their Redeemers in the form of right-wing populists and Bourbons via moderates, with the Kim Klaicks representing the same creeping advantage over a span of decades as Catholic immigrants did for Democrats in the North. Eventually the contradictions in the Democratic coalition will become apparent. You can't have the gentrifiers and the gentrified in alliance for long before people start asking questions.

[Mr. Morden]

Again, like I said on the last page, the exit polls say that, among Republicans who voted for prez in 2016 (so this omits the #NeverTrumpers who were non-voters), 12% voted for someone other than Trump.  But the exit polls also say that 7% of Republicans voted for someone other than Romney in 2012.  So I'm still wondering if it's just the case that there are a bunch of chronic party switchers, self-described Republicans who always vote Dem. at the presidential level, and then vice versa as well?  Or maybe there are just always people who are in the middle of transitioning from one party the other?  (So, Clinton voting Republicans in 2016 are on their way to becoming Dems, but before that, there were Obama voting Republicans in 2012 on their way to becoming Dems, but the former group was just a bit bigger.)

In other words, is there actually something fundamentally different about the non-Trump supporting Republicans from 2016, or do we see such a group in every election, but it was just somewhat bigger than normal that time?